Israel and Lebanon
One of the weird things about travelling cross country with someone else that doesn't watch TV is that you hear about the things happening in the world through either brief looks at news on the web, or a background TV in a restaurant or truck stop. The invasion by Israel of Lebanon was hard for me to believe at first. I heard a little snippet at a restaurant last weekend when I was in New Jersey, but I figured I was mis-hearing. It turns out, I wasn't mishearing at all.
And it keeps getting worse. And worse yet, our president thinks that this might be a good part of the war on terror. So instead of every president in previous history, who, when violence has escalated in the Middle East, flew into diplomacy mode, and tried to call for cease-fires and talks between the sides, Bush is seemingly cheering the Israeli government on. Here's a salient quote from the Washington Post:
Many Mideast experts warn that there is a dangerous consequence to this worldview. They believe that Israel, and the United States by extension, is risking serious trouble if it continues with the punishing air strikes that are producing mounting casualties. The history of the Middle East is replete with examples of the limits of military power, they say, noting how the Israeli campaign in Lebanon in the early 1980s helped create the conditions for the rise of Hezbollah.
This is bad news, all around. Many, many civilians (including children) are being killed, and their lives and towns ruined, because of this dangerous worldview. November is becoming one of the most important political seasons in the past 50 years or so. We've got to get congress back, and we have to take off these Christian Apocalyptic glasses Bush is wearing.
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